Frere Hall park left in dismal condition post-Karachi Eat

KMC claims it will not return Rs1.5m deposit to festival management if damages not repaired

KARACHI: A truck ruthlessly plys on the dull green grass of Bagh-e-Jinnah surrounding Frere Hall. It halts at one corner and a few men start loading it with piles of wood. While others try to move away the garbage bags and remove the stalls set up almost two weeks back for the Karachi Eat Festival 2017, the daily evening visitors of the park anxiously try to find a green spot in the park.

After the successful conclusion of the annual food festival Sunday night, the park lacked its usual greenery and colours on Monday evening. An old-timer, Muhammad Dewan, who regularly comes to Bagh-e-Jinnah for a walk, told The Express Tribune that the condition of the Frere Hall gardens was already not praiseworthy.

"After the festival, I am trying to find if any green patch inside the park was left," he said.



There were very small patches of lush green grass left in some areas of the garden. "Luckily, these green patches have survived the festival," commented another regular visitor to the park, Muhammad Aslam.



At one corner of the park, broken poles were lying and the very evident tyre-prints of trucks on the grass showed the apathy of the parks' management towards the condition of the park.

A Sindh government's services and general administration department notification, issued on November 23, 1998, bans the use of public parks and gardens falling within the administrative control of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) or the Karachi Development Authority (KDA) for private events. A KMC city council resolution also mentions that only the paved portion of Frere Hall and a very small portion of the lawn can be used for commercial purposes, and that too for rent worth Rs0.5 million per day to KMC.

When KMC parks and horticulture department's director-general Abdullah Mushtaque was contacted over the matter, he said that he was recently transferred from his post. However, for the trucks being plied on the grass of the Bagh-e-Jinnah, he said that, according to the law, the misuse of grass in any form is strictly prohibited.

Meanwhile, a senior official of the KMC, on the condition of anonymity, said that KMC's culture sports and recreation (CSR) department is responsible for any kind of damage to the garden. "The management of the Karachi Eat Festival was only allowed to use the pavement portion of the park by the CSR department," the official said, adding that for the last two weeks, the stalls and stages for the food festival remained installed inside the premises of Bagh-e-Jinnah due to which the grass had been completely destroyed.

Such activities, according to the official, cannot take place inside government parks.



Meanwhile, KMC's CSR department director Saif Abbas said that the organisers of the Karachi Eat Festival has already started repairs.  "We have Rs1.5 million as a deposit with us," said Abbas, adding that if the management did not repair the damages, they will not pay that amount back.

On the trucks being plied on the grass, Abbas said that the parks and horticulture department must not allow that. "This is the fourth year that this festival has taken place at Frere Hall and for the first time KMC is charging the festival management to use its premises," he said, adding that earlier, the KMC directors used to fill their pockets when such festivals took place.

Karachi Eat Festival's public relations company, Latitude CRS's publicist, Ali Chaudhry, also assured that they will plant new grass in the entire area of Bagh-e-Jinnah.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 24^th, 2017.